Hey everybody,

A while back now I posted a UW Trinket Mage deck with faeries and ninjas. I got a lot if great suggestions, and I thought some of you may be interested in an update,so here is the list I’m currently working with:

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/uw-trinket-2/?cb=1518710426

Rather than playing closer to a tempo game, the deck is now a lot slower, but has a much stronger late game card advantage engine, with [[Mulldrifter]] and [[Palace Sentinels]] taking the place of [[Ninja of the Deep Hours]].

Again, if you have questions, comments or suggestions, please let me know.

I’ve seen people suggest to sideboard out Preordain, Ponders, etc. I don’t think you want to be doing that. Though it may not look that way, Preordain and Ponder are inherently powerful. They are among the most powerful cards in Pauper. They are most likely stronger than whatever powerful sideboard cards you want to side in, even in the relevant matchups (and are almost certainly stronger than the other cards in your maindeck).

One way to understand their power is to notice that a non-cantrip card’s effectiveness changes depending on the context, even within one game:

• A land can be your best draw when you are mana screwed, or your worst draw if you are mana flooded.

• A counterspell can be your best draw when you are ahead on the board, or the worst draw when you are behind.

• A creature can be your best draw when you need to apply pressure, or your worst draw when there are already big blockers on the board or when you need to interact with whatever busted thing your opponent is doing.

• Even against Affinity, Gorilla Shaman is frequently going to be terrible when they have Darksteel Citadels and you are getting beaten down by Myr Enforcers, or when you have no lands or no red source, or when you already have another Gorilla Shaman.

Preordain and Ponder, however, can not only become the card that you need — but they can become the card that you need at exactly the right moment. This is very powerful. If we rate a card’s power from 1-10 by context, Gorilla Shaman is frequently going to be a 1 against Affinity, and it probably averages out to be a 7+. Preordain, Ponder, etc., are probably never going to be worse than a 3, and very likely average out to be better than 7+. I mean, just consider that Preordain, Ponder, etc. can become a Gorilla Shaman when Gorilla Shaman is good, and can shuffle away Gorilla Shaman when it’s not.

Another way to look at Preordain, Ponder, is to compare them against cards like Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are both banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage, and I’ll assume that people find them very powerful. However, I don’t think Preordain, Ponder compare poorly to Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor at all:

• If you have to find a very specific card, the chance to find a 4-of in your top 4 cards is around 25%, and the chance to find a 8-of is around 50%. (If you include redraws like more cantrips, you can obviously push the percentage to be even higher.)

• Frequently, the difference between the best card in your deck and the 2nd best card in you deck is small, so you are happy with a wider selection of cards, and the difference between Preordain and Demonic Tutor becomes small. For example, when you just need any threat to apply pressure, or you just need any removal spell to remove a troublesome creature, or you are trying to assemble a combo and have no combo pieces yet.

• Being able to see 2 cards at once for Preordain, and 3 cards at once for Ponder is very powerful. For example, imagine a scenario where ninja is the best card in your deck if you also have a faerie, but a terrible card without a faerie. Because you can’t guarantee to draw a faerie, using Demonic Tutor to fetch a ninja is not very good. However, if you see a ninja with Preordain or Ponder, and also see a faerie (or a cantrip), you are now able to take ninja, the best card in your deck. In other words, because of synergy, pairs of cards are more than the sum of their parts. Selecting the two best cards together is much, much better than selecting the best card in your deck separately twice.

• (Also, if you’re lucky, Preordain and Ponder can sometimes just become Demonic Tutor + Vampiric Tutor for U, since you can just take the best card in your deck, then put the 2nd best card on top :).)

So if Preordain, Ponder look like weak, unexciting cards at first glance, compare them to Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor and hopefully, you’ll see that they are in fact extremely powerful cards. (In fact, Preordain and Ponder are probably just stronger than Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor in Pauper, but that is due to the nature of the format.)

Finally, many decks are frequently constructed with Preordain, Ponder, etc. in mind. Cutting them messes up a lot of ratios. Delver, Blitz, Tribe, etc. have low land counts, low creature counts, and low interactive spell counts. They rely on Preordain, Ponder, etc. becoming the right card at the right time to function. If you cut Preordain, Ponder for supposedly good sideboard cards, I think you’ll in fact find that these decks will no longer be able to implement their game plan.

Hi guys,

I will take a break from grinding hard for the next three weeks due to holiday so I wanted to share my current decklist of Murasa Tron and give strategic advise on each Matchup in case you want to pick up on that. I will also talk through the merrits and drawbacks of playing this version over other Tron iterations. But first let’s start with the decklist and the card choices. Over the past 4 months I have changed the numbers a lot but I am now at a point where I would not make any more changes. Here is the Link: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/684327#online

DECK

Lands

4 Swiftwater Cliffs

1 Thornwood Falls

3 Shimmering Grotto

2 Snow-Covered Island

1 Snow-Covered Mountain

4 Urza’s Tower

4 Urza’s Mine

4 Urza’s Power Plant

Manafixing etc.:

4 Prophetic Prism

1 Prismatic Lense

2 Expedition Map

Card Draw, Filtering, Tutoring:

4 Mulldrifter

3 Sea Gate Oracle

1 Forbidden Alchemy

1 Impulse

2 Mystical Teachings

On board interaction:

3 Flame Slash

1 Electrostatic Bolt

1 Magma Spray

1 Electrickery

1 Rolling Thunder

2 Moment’s Peace

1 Capsize

On stack interaction:

3 Prohibit

1 False Summoning

1 Dispel

Inevitability

2 Mnemonic Wall

2 Pulse of Murasa

Sideboard:

4 Pyroblast

3 Hydroblast

1 Dispel

1 False Summoning

1 Moment’s Peace

1 Electrickery

1 Serene Heart

1 Ancient Grudge

2 Gorilla Shaman

The Gameplan

You are a control deck that cheats on mana to provide a super strong lategame. In order to get there you run quite some interaction in form of the red removal, some counters and Moment’s Peace against linear aggressive strategies. You don’t plan on assembling Tron as fast as other Tron iterations. Yet two Expedition Map help to eventually hit it, since you need to get ahead on Mana at some point. Your winconditions are either Mulldrifter beatdown or a big Rolling Thunder or locking out your opponent with Capsize. Decking also happens sometimes though because of Wall plus Capsize you can usually end the game before that. Which plan you should go for depends on the matchup and will be explained later. So the three main steps that are always the same are:

1. Slow down your opponent (this step is skipped when you play vs very controlling decks, that don’t put up early pressure)
2. Assemble Tron
3. Outcard them while Protecting something like Wall+Capsize with Pulses and Counters

Some tips on basic routine

1. Land-Sequencing is very important: Usually it’s best to start with the Taplands. Don’t be too greedy in leading with Tronlands because you might hit it off the top. That’s just gonna be awkward if you don’t and your Taplands suddenly slow you down in the midgame. That being said if you don’t have Taplands it’s almost always correct to lead with Tronland into Grotto or two Tronlands into Prism. If you have two Tronlands plus Map plus Prism just lead with Map, crack on turn two, then complete Tron and start doing the fun stuff. Also hitting land every turn is crucial. Most of the time it’s correct to dig for land instead of holding up counter if you didn’t have a landdrop for the turn. This also means evoking Mulldrifter is nothing you should shy away from. One last thing about completing Tron. Say you have Power Plant and two Maps. Always search for Mine first, then for Tower second. If you have to complete Tron on your turn that gives you the most Mana possible.

2. Tap your mana correctly: Once you hit Tron it’s important to have a plan for the turn before you execute everything. Make sure you have the right amount of coloured mana for all of your actions. Sometimes you start with carddraw like Mulldrifter. Usually it’s correct to use up two Tronlands and a Prism for that to give you the most flexibility with your other lands for future actions. If you know you will cast a couple of big things like Wall plus Drifter add 8 generic and 2 Blue in a way that uses a lot of your Tronlands.

3. Play fast: This is super important. I have both lost and won Matches because of the clock. But usually you are on the receiving end. Guess my winrate could be like 1-2 percent higher without timelosses. Some games are very complex so make sure you give yourself enough time to think through the crucial decisions by playing fast in the “easy turns”. In a controlling matchup it is totally reasonable to have blocker step and end step as only stops in your opponents turn. If you are scared of missing steps I suggest just stopping in opponents combat and end step per default but remove all the other stops until they become important.

4. Play to your odds, but don’t take risks: With this deck knowing what’s left in your library and what you could draw or should draw percentagewise gives you an edge. Often you have to play towards some cards that are not in your hand yet. BUT If you face lethal and have a defending line instead of digging for your longterm outs it is usually correct to delay the digging. Just keep in mind that in some matchups flashbacking your last Moment’s Peace might be to costly so you rather dig for Wall than buy one more turn.

Card-by-Card-Analysis

The Manabase:

A couple of things are important for executing your gameplan. You want red mana and blue mana early on, optimally at the ready in turn two. Blue can often wait till turn three if you don’t have counters or Impulse. Against a lot of decks you want green mana from turn 3-5 on depending on the aggressivness of their start. Once you have more mana you always want to have one black source at least. having black plus green can also be vital to do a couple of things per turn. In order to achieve all these requirements I run the above setup. I have 8 red sources for turn 2 (including Grotto), 7 blue sources for turn two (not counting Grotto), 8 black sources in total (not counting Map) and 9 green sources in total (not counting Map). Although Grottos and Prismatic Lense are clunky and eat one of your mana their flexibility is more important than the manaefficiency additional Taplands or Signets would provide. 3 Grottos should be the right amount since having two in hand is horrible but they are quite important especially postboard when some people attack your artifacts although I don’t recommend doing that for most decks. (In the mirror it’s fine and for red decks with Smash to Smithereens it’s also fine.) Having both mountain and island is nice in case you want to crack Map for untapped coloured sources. For quite some time I had one Izzet Guildgate but in the end having the lowest and still reasonable amount of Taplands is best. Drawing too many of them can cost you games. That’s also the reason I don’t run Bojuka Bog or Remote Isle which provide only one colour anyway. In versions that play Crop rotation they are obviously quite powerful tools.

Card draw, Filtering, Tutoring:

4 Mulldrifter: Once again keep in mind you can evoke it. Sometimes Matches come down to some kind of race in the latgame where you have a lot of carddraw but need to find one specific card from your library. Make sure to evoke the drifters in these situations to save some mana unless adding to the board gives you an alternative line of staying alive/ winning.

3 Sea Gate Oracle: Was cutting on these for some time but found that having some board presence is too important for matchups like Delver, where Ninja needs to be fought as hard as possible. Since they are a your least inefficient carddraw and multiples can be clunky I play 3. In the end they are two for ones.

1 Forbidden Alchemy: I had two for a long time since they are so good with the recursion and hit other flashback spells occasionally. Yet they don’t add to the board and milling important cards can be very painful since some matchups come down to an attrition war where you cannot afford milling a couple of threats or counters.

1 Impulse: Let’s you dig the same amount for one mana less while abundaning the advantages and disadvantages of filling your graveyard. Especially nice when your opponents play around counters turn two. If you start with Tapland and Tronland it can dig for the second tron piece before casting map on turn 3 so you get Tron turn 4.

2 Mystical Teachings: Usually starts your lategame engine. Is the reason why you play so many One-Ofs. Make sure to flashback the first before binning the second against decks with graveyard hate.

On board interaction:

3 Flame Slash: Gets most of the important beaters of the format. Carapace Forger and to some degree Nivix Cyclops are the reason this is the red removal I play most of.

1 Electrostatic Bolt: Outside of Thermo Alchemist you don’t care about most 3 toughness creatures. The Ebolt has the big advantage of killing Myr Enforcer and Spire Golem.

1 Magma Spray: Preboard most important application is against decks that want to buy back Chittering rats or other stuff from the graveyard. Killing Young Wolf is a nice side effect. More importantly it is a clean answer to Stormbound Geist postboard. I think the plan to bring in Geists vs Tron is rather mediocre, yet a lot of people do that so I might as well have this silver bullet.

1 Electrickery: Not much to say. Your silver bullet against Tokens. Doubling up in one turn with Wall can sweep bigger boards. Keep in mind you can combine it with other burn and/ or blocks so sandbagging these might be good sometimes.

1 Rolling Thunder: Most of the time just goes for all of their life but sometimes just a one-sided Wrath to buy more time. Once again don’t play it into graveyard removal too easily since it might be your only way to win the game sometimes.

2 Moment’s Peace: Pure meta call. Affinity and Stompy are quite popular. Yet I don’t recommend cutting one of those even if the meta swings a bit towards the blue decks. The difference between one and 2 Peaces is huge against the agressive decks. Often times I burn the first one to buy some time, then get to rebuy the second one with Capsize plus Wall to lock the game.

1 Capsize: Most important targets are opposing Lands, own Walls and opposing enchantments and threats in this order. If Lands don’t matter and you are afraid of opposing removal you can draw a card for 8 mana with Prism. Sounds horrible but actually won me some games. Also think of the possibiliy to cast it for 3. Sometimes this is fine as a tempo play especially if your opponent is on bouncelands. Since it can be regarded as win condition in some matchups, make sure you protect it well.

On stack interaction:

3 Prohibit: The most versatile counter which is the reason I want 3. Gets the nod over Condescend because the latter can be played around more easily and is awkward in counterwars. Also Prohibit is arguably better against the aggressive portion of the field.

1 False Summoning: Because we don’t run Condescends we need at least one maindeck answer to bigger Etb-Creatures or giant threats like Ulamog’s Crusher. The one mana difference to Exclude is important in my opinion since we don’t care about additional card advantage and it allows to play more spells in one turn as well as countering 3drops on the draw.

1 Dispel: Super good metagame card and a silver bullet I would never cut. Only stinks against Bogles. Gets a lot of opponents who think you cannot possibly interact with one blue mana out of a tron deck. Also allows for turn 6 Mulldrifters through counter which is huge in some matchups.

The sideboard cards will be discussed in the Matchup analysis. I kept track of my last 300 matches in a document. In the following I will talk through my personal 10 most common matchups and how I approach them.

Matchups:

Affinity

Record: 45-11 (preboard 33-23, postboard 46-11)

Very favorable matchup that has a lot of play to it though. Preserve your life total as good as possible even if that includes chumping with Mulldrifters or Sea Gates. Staying above 4 or 8 life is important once the board is stabilized so we can ignore Galvanic Blasts and keep a counter for Fling instead. The goal is to set up a position where they don’t have strong attacks and you have one Counter for Fling. Use Flame Slash on Forger not on Enforcer since you run Ebolt in the deck. Using Flame Slashes on early Atogs even if you don’t kill them can be a strong play. Preboard your win with Mulldrifter beatdown plus Thunder. Postboard we get to attack their resources with Shaman which can also prompt some wins by itself. Most dangerous card is Atog respectiely Fling. Honorable mentions fo to Gearseeker which can be annyoing if dropped early.

Sideboard: +3 Hydro +1 Dispel +1 Ancient Grudge +2 Gorilla Shaman +1 Pyro +1 Moment’s Peace -3 Prohibit -1 False Summoning -1 Magma Spray -1 Electrickery -1 Wall -1 Pulse -1 Capsize

You bring in more answers to the combo kill and the strong artifact hate while cutting on the more situational spells of your deck. On the play keeping one False Summoning or Prohibit instead of Pyroblast is reasonable. If possible play Shaman when you can blow up a couple of things and protect it or get it back with Pulse.

UR Delver:

Record: 21-13 (preboard 26-8, postboard 25-23)

In this Matchup we profit from the fact that they slow themselves a bit down compared to Mono Blue Delver in order to attack the meta. Still you can easily get out-tempoed. The losses usually stem from an unanswered Ninja of the Deep Hours. Your point removal and the Sea Gate Oracles help fighting that. Use your one mana spells when they don’t have mana for Spellstutter and work towards resolving Mulldrifter. Using your mana at the right times and making them waste it sometimes is important. Play conservitavely since Ninja into Gush can get them back even from unfavored positions. But don’t counter the Gushes unless you basically know their hand and Gush is the only way for them to crawl back.

Sideboard: +4 Pyro +1 Hydro +1 Dispel +1 Electrickery (+1 False Summoning) -2 Map – 2Peace -1 Capsize -1 Alchemy -1 Teachings (-1 Impulse)

You bring in all the super cheap interaction and cut on cards that don’t affect the board perminantely. Don’t bring in Ancient Grudge. If they have one Relic you can usually crack it by playing a Wall. Impulse is better then Alchemy since you might need every single card and don’t want to mill some spells. You can take it out for another False Summoning if they are on Stormbound Geists. Personally I think keeping Bolts is correct for the UR Delver player but I am always happy to see Skred postboard. Keeping in one Teachings is worth it since Pulse and Electrickery can be hard to recover from for our opponent sometimes.

Kuldotha-Boros:

Record: 23-4 (1-2 vs Monarch version) (preboard 21-6, postboard 25-7)

Super positive Matchup. They are just to slow getting out of the Gates. Only losses result from fast token production plus Rally or a lot of Burn. Yet for both these things we have answers in Moment’s Peace and Pulse Chains. Spend your removal only on the Fliers or on the Inspector if you don’t have an answer to flashbacked Battle Screech. Against the Monarch version the gameplay is different since you have to respect Palace Sentinel. Unlike the Orzhov Monarch Deck the Kuldotha version can actually convert the carddraw into a win via Burn against you. So don’t let these resolve.

Sideboard: +3 Hydroblast +1 Electrickery +1 Ancient Grudge -1 Ebolt -1 False Summoning -2 Sea Gate -1 Prohibit

Sideboarding can vary a lot on their specific build. If they don’t have relics you don’t need Grudge. If they run Palace Sentinels bring both False Summonings to the table. I’m not a big fan of bringing in Gorilla Shaman from the Tron SB because your matchup is so favorable that you don’t want to risk having the wrong line up of your cards vs theirs.

Stompy:

Record: 20-6 (preboard 15-11, postboard 26-10)

This matchup revolves around us chaining Moment’s Peace before we eventually kill them. In the first turns you keep as much power as possible off their board. Once they threaten lethal we need to use our Peaces and Pulses to stay alive and build up a superior board on our own. I’m ususally willing to go down to one life unless they look like holding Viridian Longbow which is their only way to deal non-combat damage. If you don’t have access to a race with Mulldrifters and try to Capsize-lock them with Wall and Peace you should make sure to have Counters for their Vines on your Wall. For Sea Gate Oracle it can be correct to not block with it for one turn when you are tapped out in order to not turn on their Hunger of the Howlpack. Then start blocking when you have mana to interact with them. Try to not play Island if possible because of River Boa. Note that sometimes an upkeep Electrickery can set back huge parts of their team for one turn even if it does not kill them (like Boa and Wolf). That is especially good if you are looking to build up enough mana to return a Peace with Wall and cast it in one turn.

Sideboard: +1 Moment’s Peace +1 Electrickery +1 Dispel (otd +1 Ancient Grudge) -2-3 Prohibit -1 Remove Soul

We take out all the Counters that would trade downwards manawise. On the draw we don’t want any of them and rather have 1 Grudge for Longbow and Vault Skirges. Some players run Relic anyways so it might be the correct plan even on the play.

Burn:

Record: 13-4 (preboard 14-3, postboard 15-9)

This opponent just cannot beat Pulses. The goal is always to build Tron early then cash in a couple of Pulses to seal the deal. Don’t play out your Non-Wall creatures until you feel you have to or you are on a save lifetotal in order to strand their Searing Blaze. If you have Flame Slash let their creatures resolve and counter the Burnspells instead. Don’t counter Needle Drop. Try to hold Dispel for Fireblasts. Use Prohibits if you think it saves some mana in future turns.

Sideboard: +3 Hydro +1 Dispel +1 Serene Heart +1 Ancient Grudge -1 Electrickery -1 Magma Spray -1 Ebolt -2 Peace -1 Capsize

You take out all the cards with no effects in the Matchup and bring in the strong counters plus two situational cards. Since your whole gameplan against them is about Pulses having an answer to Relic is worth it. If they plan for a slightly longer game Serene Heart handles the red Curses while letting us hold counters for the actual Burnspells. If you are restricted on coloured mana or you think they have a couple of dead cards in hand you should hold on Prophetic Prism until you use it for Countermana or Pulsemana.

UB Flicker:

Record: 9-8 (major mistakes in three lost matches, 2 timeouts as well) (preboard 14-3, postboard 10-14)

This Matchup suffers a bit from our deckbuilding. Here some amount of Condescends would be nice. Still it is a positive one if played correctly, as you can see from my results. Try to have some Shuffle or Filtering when they go for Chittering rats so you don’t draw your worst card in hand again. Besides that you win by being ahead on mana and sneaking in Mulldrifters and Capsize in the windows you get. Be aware that they can buy back huge portions of their Graveyard with Reap, so you need to pressure them in some way once you are ahead. Don’t let your Capize get countered by Flicker. In general let them not utilize this card by killing of their good targets when you are save to do so. Don’t trade creatures if not necessary. It opens up for Reap or Unearth. Be careful with your important spells if you see Bojuka Bog.

Sideboard: +4 Pyro +1 Dispel +1 False Summoning +1 Grudge -3 Flame Slash -2 Peace -1 Electrickery -1 Ebolt

Since they don’t put up early pressure you take out all the removal but Magma Spray which has the nice exiling effect. Postboard you need to be really careful against graveyard hate and duresses. Once the game seems to be locked Prohibit becomes your most important Counter because of Duress.

Bogles:

Record: 6-6 (preboard 8-4, postboard 9-11)

I am actually fairly confident for this Matchup yet the results suggest a coinflip. For the Matchups with lower sample size I will tell you my gut feeling and for Bogles this is quite good. I had two Serene Hearts in the SB for some time but felt that with three Moment’s Peaces after sideboarding this is not necessary anymore. Your counter targets should be the creatures if they don’t have any on the board. Otherwise if you have Chumpblockers you can go for the Trample Auras. Usually it is correct to just counter Etheral Armor and Mask though. That also gives you the highest probability of eventually sweeping their board with Electrickery after you capsized a bunch of their Auras. Against Bogles you can savely go down to one life so use your Moment’s Peaces as late as possible and try to chump only big non-trampling threats.

Sideboard: +1 Heart +1 False Summoning +1 Electrickery +1 Moment’s Peace -1 Magma Spray -1 Ebolt -2 Flame Slash

If you know they don’t run Flairing Pain you can cut the Dispel. Same is true for Aura Gnarlid and Flame Slash. Given that they often cannot flashback Flairing Pain, having Dispel postboard might buy the one turn you need when you are fogging them. If you have a mediocre draw sometimes it can be worth bluffing Electrikery. Some players fall for it and hold back their good Auras which gives you more time.

Teachings:

Record: 8-3 (preboard 7-4, postboard 9-6)

This matchup feels a lot worse than my record suggests but somehow I managed to win a lot. Your only real threat against them is Capsize so the plan is to build Tron and Capsize their lands with enough protection up. Given they play teachings they should have landdrops and Counterspells more frequently which makes it difficult to execute this plan. Then if you try to land other threats you run into Exclude and the likes. The blue Curse is also quite annoying since you don’t have that many spells in your library that actually matter so getting them milled is painful. You should consider yourself the aggressor in this matchup and try to get ahead on mana at the same time. The Sideboardguide targets the UB versions since I only played Grixis teachings three times.

Sideboard: +1 Dispel +1 Serene Heart +4 Pyro +1 Grudge +2 Shamans -2 Peace -1 Electrickery -1 Ebolt -1 Magma Spray -3 Flame Slash -1 False Summoning

Postboard we get to remove a lot of garbage but face Duresses and graveyard hate as additional things to fight through. I guess the matchup stays about the same or turns slightly in their favor since they also get to remove a lot of useless removal spells.

Red Deck Wins:

Record: 5-5 (preboard 5-5, postboard 7-8)

This matchup also feels worse than the numbers suggest. That being said our version of Murasa Tron plays quite some early interaction so around 50-50 or slightly worse might actually be accurate. Unless against Stompy you cannot hold to your Moment’s Peaces till the very last moment since they have Burn. Kill their creatures on your turn to avoid blowouts by Mutagenic Growth but hold instant removal if you think they plan to play Heelcutter. This one and Bushwhacker are the things you want to counter besides early Burning-Tree or late Burnspells. This matchup is all about preserving your life total so you better have some answers against their fast starts. On the draw I would not keep hands that cannot interact the first 2-3 turns (Sea Gate does not count) unless you have Moment’s Peace.

Sideboard: +3 Hydroblast +1 Dispel +1 Moment’s Peace +1 False Summoning -2 Map -1 Capsize -1 Electrickery -1 Teachings -1 Prohibit

Izzet Blitz:

Record: 6-4 (preboard 4-6, postboard 10-6)

This time my record feels about right. It’s not a pretty matchup since they can just be too fast, but you have a lot to fight them. If you have Moment’s Peace preboard you put them to the Dispel test though good Blitz Players will spread their damage if they sense a Fog. Play your removal on your turn and try to counter their creatures first because if they fight over it you have more mana on your turn and if they lose the Counterwar the Apostle’s Blessings and the likes get stranded in their hand. If they don’t act, also don’t act. It will eventually lead to them discarding.

Sideboard: +3 Hydro +4 Pyro +1 Dispel +1 False Summoning -2 Moment’s Peace -1 Electrickery -3 Sea Gate Oracle -1 Alchemy -1 Map -1 Pulse

You bring in all the Blasts since they are one mana removal for their only threats. Make sure to destroy Cyclops with Pyroblast if possible since Hydroblast gets all the threats. Cutting Moment’s Peace might seem counterintuitive but I expect them to bring in Flairing pain and I’d rather not play the lottery on that one. Also if they get to untap with Fiend or Cyclops the chances our Moment’s Peace resolves are slim already. And like I mentioned earlier playing around it is not impossible for them. We also cut the Alchemy because the games can be super grindy and come down to using ll your counters. I could also see going full control and keeping the second Pulse instead of Thunder but that might be too risky.

Why play the deck?

1. To put it simple: you win a lot. I am currently at a win rate of about 69% an trend is going upwards again after I lost some percentage because of learning every important interaction and playing with the numbers. From the above Matchups there is not a single one which is clearly unfavorable. Mono Blue Delver is slightly unfavorable I think. The only really bad matchups are other Tron iterations. They assemble Tron faster, have more threats and less removal that doesn’t matter. So if you think you face a lot of these maybe you should shy away from the deck. That being said Tron mirrors can be a bit random sometimes so you can always sneak a win with early Tron.

2. The games are super interesting: At the beginning it might be frustrating because the deck is quite hard to pilote perfectly but if you like to take challenges try this one. I do believe I have become a better magic player because of this deck. My processing of both tactical and longterm decicions has gotten a lot faster. After all the deck rewards good play very much which is a super satisfying feeling.

3. You get some free wins because of silly draws like Tron turn three with coloured mana. Also you get to tilt your opponents a lot which is kind of amusing. I don’t want to sound mean but it’s funny how often people complain Tron draws exactly the right card every time when in reality other cards would just open up other lines or you have put a lot of work in to make the top of your deck super rewarding.

4. It is hard to play against. Your opponents always have to consider that you might have a huge jump in mana. Also running quite some One-Ofs means they have to do a lot of scary decicions what to play around and not. Sometimes they just get screwed because of that.

My thoughts on other iterations of Tron

I think you can divide Tron decks on to different parameters: a) speed with which they assemble Tron b) amount of interaction they play. These parameters are not completely independent from each other. For example the Tron decks with Fangren Marauders assemble Tron very consistently very early. Hence they get to play less interaction. Still a lot of lists run something like 2 Firebolt and 2 Edict maindeck to have some chance in Matchups like Delver. Personally I like these versions the least. If you want to go big and fast then play the UG version of /u/kungfutrees. It just works on a completely different axis and has a strong sideboard plan for the Matchups where you want non-fog-interaction. I think the deck is super powerful and can be tuned even more. I am just too afraid of Flicker Loops online since they take so much time. Then on the other hands you have Tron decks like Murasa Tron and Dinrova Tron which run more interaction and assemble Tron a little slower. Dinrova Tron is sort of in the middle of the speed scale and the interaction scale. They are definitely faster than Murasa Tron but a little slower than the All-in versions. They also refuse to play removal as interaction and work more on the axis of the UG Tron deck. That makes them softer to decks like UR Delver which are a huge portion of the metagame. You get to completely crush control and linear aggressive strategies though. You should also have a better RDW matchup than Murasa Tron but a worse Izzet Blitz and Burn Matchup. Taken all these things into account I would say Dinrova Tron pushes the Matchups more to the extremes. It completely trashes linear aggressive strategies and other control deck but has a negative Delver Matchup and gives up some percentage on the red Matchups. Murasa Tron has even to positive Matchups against the whole field except other Tron iterations and Mono Blue Delver. I would rather be on a deck like this especially since I also put up insanely good numbers vs Affinity and Stompy.

That was all I have for now. I might add more if I stumble across more in my notes. That was just written out of my head. If you have any questions on cards I did not consider or Matchups I didn’t talk about feel free to ask. Also let me know what are your experiences with or against Tron.

Cheers, Xto2

A lot of people have been fighting over it so let’s deal with it once and for all here. UB 101 or Grixis 101? https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/652825#online https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/672718#online